Gospel Legend Clarence Fountain, Blind Boys of Alabama Leader and Founding Member, Dead at 88
The Blind Boys had their roots in the mid-1940s at a segregated school for the blind in Talladega, Ala., where Mr. Fountain and five friends formed a group they originally called the Happy Land Jubilee Singers.
Renamed the Blind Boys, the group was well established on the gospel circuit by the time many other performers, including Otis Redding, Little Richard, Sam Cooke and Mr. Brown, became famous for moving from gospel to secular music. They worked with Lou Reed, Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Neil Diamond, Tom Waits, Aaron Neville and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.